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Cutting Through Complexity: America’s Health Rankings Infographic

Overview

For more than two decades, the United Health Foundation has compiled national data to create a comprehensive, state-by-state assessment of the country’s health.

Services Provided

Corporate Communications

Health Care

Challenge

America’s Health Rankings is the longest running report of its kind and includes a wealth of data, but translating its findings into an actionable, consumer-friendly format has proven difficult. Moreover, at more than 100 pages, the full report has been too unwieldy to distribute at events and meetings with key opinion leaders. To help relay the report’s findings in Colorado, UnitedHealthcare (UHC) turned to Linhart PR to succinctly share the state’s health ranking data in a way that would resonate with a variety of audiences.

Solution

The PR team found research that indicated infographics result in double-digit increases for clicks, page views and shares over a traditional news release. In addition, infographics help improve information delivery because visuals account for 90 percent of all data processed by the brain. The PR team pulled Colorado-specific statistics from the America’s Health Ranking report to create an infographic that visually shared how state residents fared against key wellness measures.

The UHC team liked the Colorado infographic so much they asked Linhart PR to create tailored infographics for all 50 states, as well an infographic conveying national data and trends to tell the overall America’s Health Rankings story. Linhart PR created a template infographic that included trends about issues important to UHC— diabetes and obesity— and then added in each state’s positive news, ensuring it would convey what the state was doing well while also highlighting areas of opportunity.

Results

The infographics proved useful for a variety of purposes and audiences, including media, key influencers, employees and corporate partners. For example, UHC’s national team included the infographic with the America’s Health Rankings news release and fact sheets as part of the media outreach package for its PR firms nationwide. Specifically in the Rocky Mountain region, Linhart PR included the infographic in all media outreach about the Health Rankings, offering it as another way to cover the story, but primarily pushed it as an opportunity to connect with fans online and reach health-focused decision makers. UHC also created a series on the America’s Health Rankings Facebook page to distribute state-level infographics. Infographics remain a tool UHC effectively uses to share its annual health rankings.